Overview
A less visible risk in low-code adoption is not that applications fail, it is that useful applications persist.
A department replaces a spreadsheet. A local team digitizes a workflow. A small application closes a service gap faster than central IT could have delivered it. The result looks like progress because the application is useful and the backlog appears to shrink.
Repeated often enough, local success can expand the application estate. Each application creates future obligations around ownership, support, security, data, integration, licensing, continuity, and eventual retirement. The CIO’s question therefore goes beyond being simply, “Can low-code build this?”, to: Did this requirement belong in low-code, or did low-code simply make it easier to avoid the portfolio decision?
This means that CIOs need a routing decision before they approve another application platform. Low-code should be treated as a selective delivery tier within application portfolio governance. It …